Greiner, Cummings, and Bhambri (2003) allege that new CEOs' strategic transformation strategies hardly flourish in their efforts to boost organizational financial performance. Greiner, Cummings, and Bhambri (2003) state that CEOs who thrive share specific behavioral patterns in their change initiatives, especially when they follow a predetermined order - the seven stages of intervention defined by the roles undertaken by the CEO.
In today's global business and multicultural environment, firms cannot settle for incremental improvements; they must continuously undergo performance transformations to get and stay on top. However, how to go about strategic transformation rarely addresses the role of the CEO (Taneja et al., 2017). What functions should the CEO execute, and how different are these roles from the initiatives sponsor or the executive team. In recent decades, Fortune 500 CEOs last less than three years. According to research, top executive failure rates stand at 75 percent, and they are infrequently less than 30 percent (Taneja et al., 2017). It should be noted that even competent CEOs leading effectively can be victims of environmental and organizational roadblocks. Thus, according to Greiner, Cummings, and Bhambri (2003), the 4-D model of strategic transformation echoes the ability of new CEOs to align themselves across the four driving forces that either encourage or hinder the change process.
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The 4-D model constitutes the Desired, Detoured, Deceived, and Doomed . Greiner, Cummings, and Bhambri (2003) posit that change management in organizations advances through the course of seven stages of intervention, starting from the of the enterprise and progressively cutting across the entire enterprise. In each of the seven stages, CEOs play different leadership roles in organizational transformation. From the initial phase, CEOs are negotiators, outcome-oriented leaders, innovators, organizers and political architects, commitment communicators, implementation monitors, and orchestrate empowerment (Greiner, Cummings & Bhambri, 2003). Thus, for organizations to be successful, CEOs must be selected based on past behavior and experience and the orientation to collaborative action, and the organization should be receptive to change.
The 4-D theory is based on the alignment of the four driving forces that either sustain or hamper change initiatives. From the first driving force, strictly following the seven intervention stages and the CEO's objectives, the CEO's action-oriented ability, the organization's inclination to change, and the enabling or blocking components in the external market environment (Greiner, Cummings & Bhambri, 2003). The "Desired" occurs when there is perfect chemistry between the driving forces and seven intervention stages supporting the CEOs change initiatives received favorably by the organization to take advantage of the market opportunities to gain a competitive advantage.
The "Detoured" is experienced when there are internal barriers to organizational change, but the CEO's change initiatives are supported by the environment (Greiner, Cummings & Bhambri, 2003). Thus, strategic change can only be achieved when the CEO eliminates the barriers to change. The "Deceived" occurs when the CEO’s change initiatives are aligned with organizational receptivity but become unsuccessful in the marketplace (Greiner, Cummings & Bhambri, 2003). The "Doomed" is when the CEO’s strategic change initiatives are met with organizational barriers to change and a lack of marketplace support (Greiner, Cummings & Bhambri, 2003). A "Doomed" scenario occurs when there is a misalignment between the CEO’s initiatives, the seven stages of intervention, and the driving forces that do not offer any positive results in realizing strategic change (Greiner, Cummings & Bhambri, 2003).
For strategic transformations to be successful, they require unparalleled energy where employees must rethink on the strategies required to reshape the enterprise and the CEO's ability and willingness to engage with employees openly, adopting a personal approach, and spotlighting success to help crystalize the transformation which gives employees the confidence that it will actually work (Taneja et al., 2017).
References
Greiner, L., Cummings, T., & Bhambri, A. (2003). When new CEOs succeed and fail: 4-D theory of strategic transformation. Organizational Dynamics , 32 (1), 1-16. doi: 10.1016/s0090-2616(02)00134-1
Taneja, S., Atinc, G., & Pryor, M. G. (2017). Strategic Reorientation in Failing Firms: The Ceo Perspective. Journal of Business Strategies , 34 (2).
